More Halfas to Worry About
by TFSyndicate
Summary: Danny begins to wonder if revealing his secret to his parents was a good idea. (NOTE: Post PP/Set after "Phantom Planet")
1. Fifteen Minutes

In the weeks following what everybody likes to call "The Disasteroid Incident", life returned to normal in Amity Park; albeit for the better. For one thing, a whole bunch of ghosts that have been noted to be menacing in the past have stopped terrorizing the town on a regular basis, and began to live regular afterlives-often behaving like they used to be when they were alive. Many of the minor offenders in Walker's prison were put up for parole. The Ghost Zone, now living under a democracy since the fall of the ghost king, signed a peace treaty with Mayor Foley, promising to save any to all town attacks to one night a year (It's like that movie _The Purge_. Everyone has seen _The Purge_ , right?)

But most importantly, young Danny doesn't need to worry about keeping his status as a halfa a secret anymore. So far the town has took it well, not to mention his own parents, which he was relieved to find out. With the decline in ghost attacks, Jack and Maddie decided to retool Fenton Works from a ghost hunter headquarters to a supernatural research and investigation facility-emphasis on research. But of course, they still have their old equipment on standby just in case an emergency goes on.  
As for Danny himself, the first few weeks back were an overwhelming mess. There were always members of the press or the paparazzi waiting by his front door to get a glimpse of the world-famous "ghost boy". But, like an internet phenomenon, Danny's fifteen minutes came and went, and he stopped worrying about getting harassed on the street. He still got the respect he deserved, and Paulina (finally) started to notice him, ghost or not. But he realized his heart belonged to Sam, no if's, and's or but's. Although he hasn't heard back from Dani in a while.

While many of Danny's enemies became allies, others, like Skulker and Technus, are still threats, but they also kept their attacks infrequent to give him a break. They owe him _that_ much for what happened in "The Disasteroid Incident". Walker cleared Danny of all charges, permitting him and his human friends to come and go they pleased. But, like his parents, the decline in supernatural mischief had a significant effect on him. He got board searching for ghosts causing trouble, and instead, usually gone ghost just for the thrill of flying around town-sometimes causing a bit of mischief of his own (girl's locker room anyone? tee hee).  
But his parents got into a bit of mischief themselves lately, and that's where our story begins.

It was one day after school, Danny just came back from capturing an out-of-town ghost looking for a challenge. Jack and Maddie were cleaning up the basement when Danny came in. He opened the Fenton Thermos and sent the newcomer straight into the infamous portal. Noticing his parents with mops and brooms in their hands, Danny set the Thermos aside, picked up a dust rag, and set to work cleaning all those hard-to-reach places in the room. The whole time, not once did the parents see Danny put his feet down on the floor.

Under her breath, Maddie said to Jack, "Look at Danny having fun up there."  
"It's times like these that make me wish I was the one caught in the accident," said Jack.  
"Are you jealous?"  
"Are _you_?"  
Maddie nodded.  
With his work done, Danny dropped the dust rag as he would a microphone after nailing a speech. He flew down to his parents, his whole body upside down, yet heads level.  
"Whacha whispering about?" Danny asked in a sing-songy way.  
"Oh...ha ha," Maddie chuckled, "We were just wondering how you got the Portal working."  
"Oh, it was simple," Danny had no clue what was going on, "It was plugged in _before_ it was turned on; _and_ you had the buttons on the inside."  
"Of _course_ ," Jack face-palmed in a theatrical manner, "I _knew_ I fudged up somehow...Ooooo! Fudge!"

Jack started for the stairs leading up. Danny followed, eager to get in on the fudge himself. Maddie was left alone in the basement, and she faced the open portal. The plugs were lying about, _asking_ for someone to trip over and pull them apart.  
"Hmmm," Maddie thought, "Plugged in before turned on... This should be fun!"  
Danny was gonna be in for a shock come nightfall, maybe later.


	2. (S)mother

There was an electrical outage the next morning during breakfast. No doubt the parents' doing, because Danny and Jazz were the first ones at the table. They didn't hear any yelling, just a fun-sounding "Wooo!"  
"What was _that_?" asked Danny.  
"Beats me," said Jazz, "Have you noticed Mom and Dad acting a bit suspicious lately?"  
"Yeah. Like they're jealous I get to experience the best of both worlds."  
Danny scooped another load of scrambled egg onto his fork.  
"The last thing I expect them to be doing is recreating the portal accident."  
"I know, right? I mean, what are the odds of being caught up in that thing when it's plugged in first then turned on?"  
"I'm guessing...fifty-fifty."  
Just then, Danny's ghost sense went off. Somehow, he knew who it was. It was Desiree.  
"Ah. Just the ghost I wanna speak to," Danny cleared his throat, "I wish that you have a say in what wishes you want to grant."  
Desiree's hand started to glow a pinkish color, then it spread all over her body, then it disappeared.  
"Thank you! You've just made my afterlife easier, you have _no_ idea!"  
"Well, glad I could help."  
Jack and Maddie emerged from the basement door just as Desiree disappeared. Maddie's hair was smoking, and black in some places.  
" _What_ was going _on_ down there?" asked Jazz.  
"Oh, nothing, heh heh," said Maddie.  
"We were just testing out a new invention," Jack said nervously, "The Fenton blow dryer!"  
Jack and Maddie went upstairs to clean up, while Danny and Jazz took their breakfast dishes to the dishwasher.  
"Well that would explain the exciting 'Woo' sound," said Jazz.  
"I may not be the brightest kid here," said Danny, "But they're probably lying. 'Fenton blow dryer'? Sounds like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel."  
"Well it _has_ been a slow week since the ghosts stopped attacking."  
"I wish I had the last few minutes of my life back!"  
Desiree appeared again, "That's probably for the best," and granted Danny's wish. Danny, refreshed, went ghost, flew upstairs to grab his backpack, then started off for school.

Danny's school life changed heavily after "The Disasteroid Incident". Old Man Lancer allowed Danny to excuse himself in case a ghost threatens the school, but that hasn't been happening lately, because like I said, the only threat as of late is Skulker. Tucker, because of his mayoral status, could not attend classes personally: instead, he brings in a virtual presence device, complete with a webcam and a monitor, so people can still see his face when they talk to him. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the peace treaty, a lot of ghosts started appearing in Danny's school, either as enrolling students or guest speakers. Yesterday, Elvis showed up during music class. This morning, Da Vinci lectured an art class. To many students, it was exciting. To Danny, eh: he lives through that kind of stuff every day.

After school, it was a walk in the park with Sam, doing each other's homework on a bench. The parted ways by nightfall, and Danny went ghost and took off. He lost the thrill of patrolling for ghosts to capture, but he still loved the flying. Of course, he always wanted to be an astronaut: maybe his halfa status could be the first step! He could soar beyond the atmosphere, maybe to the other end of the universe. Maybe not right now, because Vlad is still up there somewhere.  
Danny's thoughts were interrupted by the unexpected presence of Skulker.  
"SURPRISE, Scum!" he said.  
"What the..." exclaimed Danny, "Skulker, It's Wednesday! You said you'd hold off until the weekend!"  
"First rule of scheduling a battle, punk: _Always_ show up early! Really catch 'em off guard."  
"Are you here to teach me, or grind me down to pelt?"  
Before Skulker could answer, a blueish light shined right into Danny's face-similar to the one emitted from his Thermos. Danny moved back an inch to keep away from the beam, and watched as Skulker was sucked in the Thermos that wasn't his. But whose was it? It wasn't Valerie: she had her own equipment. Danny was in for a shock.

It was MOM.

But at the same time, it wasn't 'mom'. The Maddie he saw was in a grey-white jumpsuit much like his own, and light blue hair instead of light brown.  
"MOM?!" Danny exclaimed a little too loudly.  
"Danny? Sweetie?" Yep. Definitely his mother.  
Maddie flew up and gave him a hug; a squeeze so hard it would make Jack jealous.  
"Your parents wanna have high-flying fun, too!" Now she was smothering him, "C'mere, _snookums!_ "  
Danny screamed in fear, and phased out of his mother's hug. There was a lone ghost witnessing the whole thing-possibly a friend of Ember.  
"MAMA'S BOY!" she said in a teasing/taunting matter.  
"Ugh," Danny groaned, taking off for home.  
As far as he was concerned, his mother had _a lot_ of questions to answer.  
"I _knew_ it wasn't a blow dryer!"


	3. Drop DAD

"Mom's a HALFA?"  
"Mom's a halfa."  
Breakfast the next morning. If you couldn't tell, Jazz couldn't _believe_ what her younger brother just told her.  
"What's her ghost name?" asked Jazz, "Better than yours, I hope."  
"Worse," groaned Danny, "She's In- _spectre_ Maddie. I know, embarrassing right?"  
"No doubt an excuse for her to mollycoddle you by surprise. But I don't blame her, you've left us on our own for like, what, three years now?"  
Danny nodded.  
"They have a right to feel jealous and left out. They want what you got."  
"Is that from that book you always read?" said Danny.  
Jazz nodded. That was all he needed to know. His sister's hopes of _trying_ to be normal are slowly going down the drain.  
"Well just be glad Dad isn't one. Yet," Danny continued, "The last thing we need is...and I'm pitching this out of the blue...Jackhammer."  
At that moment Jack burst in through the basement door. No strange electrical noises beforehand this time, just plain old stairway clumsiness.  
"Whatjasay, Danno?" said Jack, "You got a nickname for me?"  
"What?!...NO! I said...JACK, you want HAM for dinnER."  
"Oh. Okay. Maybe we could have some fudge for desert?"  
Danny and Jazz rolled their eyes. Then they noticed it was time for school again.  
"I'll fly you," offered Danny.  
Jack waited for Danny and Jazz to leave the room, then he inspected the Fenton Finder in his hand. Danny's beeping dot indicated he was miles away, while Maddie's was close by. Perfect. He set back for the basement. Okay- _NOW_ we cue the strange electrical noises.

The discussion between Danny and Jazz over their mother being a half continued after school.  
"Well lemmie tell you something, Jazz" said Danny, "That accident was no walk in the park."  
Jazz threw in "So what are you saying? I could die trying to replicate the Portal incident?"  
"Don't you be getting ideas. Right now I'm glad you don't want any part in their little fiasco."

Nightfall, time for Danny's patrol, and now, by extension, Maddie's. To make their lives easier, Danny and his mother agreed to patrol only sections of the town: Danny keeping watch downtown, and Maddie everywhere else. Once again, ghost activity was low. The closest thing Danny found to some action was the Box Ghost in an alley full of boxes. He hasn't been attacking boxes _since_ "Disasteroid Incident, The", so you can definitely understand how much he wants to blow off steam by throwing a couple of boxes around. The only thing that has changed about the Box Ghost was the voice: it sounded squeakier and wimpier than before...almost like Justin Roiland.  
"BEWARE!" yelled the Box Ghost the moment he laid eyes on Danny.  
Danny just stood...no...floated there and yawned. How more pathetic could he get? The Box Ghost picked the largest box he could find in the alley and threw it in Danny's direction. It just went right through him. Then they both heard another voice.  
"BANZAI!"  
A huge black-white chunk of blubber fell hard right on the Box Ghost, squishing him down to nothing but a puddle of stray ectoplasm. Unfortunately, Danny knew this blubber. It was a halfa version of HIS DAD.  
"Hi, Danno!" he said, "Wanna toss me your thermos so I can take in what's left of him?"  
Danny threw Jack his thermos, then facepalmed.  
"Atta boy, sonny!" said his father, "Phantom and the Jackhammer! What a pair!"  
Danny was less than amused. Then he was less than able to breathe, because the next thing hew knew, the Jackhammer threw him into a bone-crushing, ecto-siphoning bear hug.  
Poor Danny. Only one word came to his mind, and that word was "HELP!"


	4. If You Can't Beat 'Em

Danny relayed what he saw last night to Jazz the next morning, over breakfast.  
"First Mom, now Dad. What next?" he complained.  
"I think I figured out where this is going, Danny," said Jazz "Face it: you're spawning a fad. Who _knows_ who's gonna be a halfa next?"  
Danny was not amused.  
"It's as if they didn't _know_ the odds!" Danny continued, "The last thing I wanna see is someone _dying_ from trying to recreate the portal accident. From the looks of it, only someone with my bloodline can pull off a stunt like that." (wink wink, Butch)  
Jazz raised her hand with a thought, "You do know that halfas are just regular humans with ectoplasm in their blood and DNA, right?"  
"So? What's your point?"  
"Well, nobody said anything about the portal being essential to the procedure of becoming one. I'm pretty sure all it takes is...uh...you know..." she mimed an injection with her hand.  
Danny shuddered. Leave it to Jazz to figure out a loophole.  
"I've got a good mind to wish that my _parents_ aren't halfas anymore."  
He turned around to see Desiree...munching on popcorn. Then he remembered he wished she had a say in this.  
"Fat chance," said Desiree in a teasing voice, "I _love_ where this is going!"

Jazz herself wasn't keen on her parents having ghost powers. She also hoped it would be just Danny. But from the way things are going now, any chances of steering the Fentons into a normal direction are flying out the window (pun intended). If this was all an elaborate scheme to get Jazz to crack and admit that ghosts are a real thing, then mission accomplished. Looks like Jazz has to become a halfa as well. As the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But Jazz was smart enough to _not_ take the portal approach, instead opting to put her needle hypothesis in action. Jazz took off from school early, while Danny was occupied with music class and guest lecturers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. She needed ectoplasm, and to get that, she would need to trap a ghost first. But who to trap?  
Undergrowth was the first one to come to mind, considering that Jazz was in the park. She pulled up a whole bunch of stray leaves and grass to use as bait. Heading back to the lab at home, she took a syringe, a Fenton Thermos and a roll of Fenton Duct Tape (Guaranteed to hold down even the tiniest drop of ectoplasm!) Then, starting at the open portal, Jazz made a trail of the leaves and grass she collected from outside. The trail lead to a newly-opened greenhouse in the heart of the park. Everything else went around like clockwork ( _no_ pun intended): Soon enough, Undergrowth (Hey kids, it's Mark Hamill! APPLAUSE) emerged from the portal and took the bait: he followed the trail into the greenhouse, and before he knew it, Jazz taped him down to the ground.  
"Hey! What's going on?!" yelled Undergrowth, obviously confused, "WHATREYA DOING?!"  
Jazz stepped forward with an empty syringe, plunged it into Undergrowth, and extracted as much ectoplasm as it could carry. Now that she had what she needed, she opened the Thermos and sucked Undergrowth back in.

The experiment continued back in the lab, with Jazz wearing a white-with-black jumpsuit. She bought two guinea pigs from the pet store downtown, ones that she _knew_ were from the same bloodline, to use as...well...guinea pigs! Jazz unplugged the portal, put one guinea pig in the open space, and plugged it back in. The portal glowed its iconic ecto green, and after a while, it spat out the guinea pig. 'Yep', she thought after a close inspection, 'It's dead all right.' She pulled out the ecto sample she acquired from Undergrowth, and let out just a small portion of it into the second guinea pig's bloodstream. Jazz was delighted at what she saw: two tiny rings emerged from the center of the guinea pig and split apart in different directions, turning the guinea pig's fur from light brown to dark blue.  
Standing up, Jazz sighed "Farewell, normality," as she plunged the syringe in her arm, and let out a generous amount of Undergrowth's ectoplasm. At first, nothing happened. Weird. Jazz walked over to a nearby mirror and began to wait. The guinea pig and Danny made turning into a ghost look _so_ easy. She shut her eyes and clenched her fists; maybe that could be something. No. She heard noises in the back of her head, which she initially thought was a ghost power, but no, that was coming from the Fenton Clock Radio, sitting on a table behind her.  
"You're listening to me, Todd Zeppelin," the radio blared, "And now for all you salsa people out there, here's some Santana."  
Jazz wanted to shut the radio off so she could concentrate on turning into a ghost. But the minute she did a complete 180, the ecto finally triggered a full-on transformation. Her white-with-black jumpsuit turned black-with-white, just like Danny's; and her hair went from bright orange to straight-up blue. Then Jazz remembered that Danny's ghost powers were somewhat involuntary in the early days, leading her to figure that, with a little practice, she too would get the hang of it.

Jazz was busy admiring her new getup and started thinking of a cool nickname, that she completely forgot about turning off the Fenton Clock Radio. She didn't need to remember anymore, because the next thing she knew, the music stopped abruptly. Jazz turned around. It was Danny who turned it off. They stood/floated there, looking at each other in their respective ghost forms.  
"What can I say?" said Jazz, sighing again, "I caved."  
Danny's reaction was borderline unimpressed.  
"Welcome to the club," was all he could think about saying.


	5. I Need Help

Danny's ghost sense ran hog wild throughout the night, making it _very_ difficult for him to sleep. But he couldn't do anything about it, because his _whole family_ was half ghost now. He stuck his head through the wall to see how well his parents are taking it. Nope, he observed, they're sleeping like a log; Jack especially. For a short while, Danny wondered how they managed to sleep through their ghost sense going off; and then _he_ fell asleep at long last.  
He was awakened a few hours later by a more intense trigger from his ghost sense. Danny opened his eyes and instantly wished he hadn't. There, floating before his bed...was Vlad.  
"Hello, little badger," he said theatrically.  
"Ugh," Danny scoffed, "What are _you_ doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in space?"  
"Yes, I was. But then I _finally_ mustered up the energy I need to generate my own portal out of thin air and come back down!"  
"Look," said Danny, "If you're here for Mom again, she filed a restraining order on you in case you ever come here again."  
"Well how does _that_ stop _me_ from seeing _you_ , eh, Daniel?" Logic, "Anyway, I wanted to stop by and see how things are going without me. I uh...heard that your parents know."  
"Yes...and they've decided to _be_ like me as well."  
"You mean...?"  
"They're halfas too now. Because of that, I'm not sure letting them know about it in the first place was a good idea."  
Vlad stepped back a bit, aiming to be out of his parents' ghost sense range.  
"You know," he declared, "My offer still stands. Would you still like to be my apprentice, no harm to the parents?"  
"Are you serious? After my parents found out what a monster you really are?"  
"Oh come on Daniel, why can't we let bygones be bygones? Besides, I've still got a few more powers that you're better off brushing up on!"  
Danny stood up. He slowly walked away from his bed and into Vlad's open arms.  
"You've got a point there, you big ham," he admitted.  
"Oooo!" said Vlad, "I'm not a fruitloop anymore!"  
"Yeah. It's not as catchy as it used to be."  
"Oh, Daniel..."  
"Oh, Vladimir..."  
And they...

* * *

 _ **AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!**_ _  
_Danny jolted out of bed the next morning. He ran as quick as he could to the window, and, opening it, began to spit his mouth dry, onto the alleyway below. A dream that involved him _kissing_ his arch nemesis?! His nightmares have reached a _new_ low.  
He switched into his day clothes, then head out of his room for breakfast. He had to take his mind off that nightmare _some_ how; either that or wish that the whole halfa!parents fiasco was a dream also. But that wasn't an option, as Desiree was probably _still_ enjoying this.  
It got worse. Danny arrived at the table to find Jackhammer, Inspectre Maddie and...Jazz (her nickname was fine the way it was) in their ghost forms, floating a few inches above a chair of nothingness! He found it very awkward that he was the only one in the room who _wasn't_ in his ghost form, so he had no choice but to turn into 'the Phantom' and play along. They saw him change and smiled. As they began to speak, all sorts of colored wisps triggered by their ghost sense flew out of their mouths.  
"Hi, Danny boy!" They all said.  
Danny tilted his head down toward the (clean) scrambled eggs on his plate. He groaned.  
"Ugh, I sure hope Clockwork needs to see me today," he said to himself.  
Actually, he'd go see Clockwork himself, but the only way to set up a meeting with Clockwork is to wait for _him_ to set up a meeting with _you_.


	6. Trust Me: You're Better Off This Way

Danny was _really_ lucky that Clockwork wanted to see him at around the same time _he_ wanted to see Clockwork. An Observer announced the halfa's arrival to the Time Lord himself. Danny saw him seated in a lounge chair, watching a wall-full of television screens, each one playing slightly different, yet strikingly similar content.  
Clockwork turned around in his chair to face Danny.  
"You wanted to see me?" they said at the same time, "No, you go first. No, _you_!"  
"I understand you have questions," Clockwork cleared his throat, "Go ahead."  
Danny sighed, "Clockwork, since my parents learned that I was a halfa, they went ahead and used the portal to make _themselves_ into halfas. Jazz too, but she did it with a syringe."  
"I see. She found a safer path."  
"That's not the point, Clockwork," Danny was annoyed, "I'm starting to doubt that revealing myself to my parents was a good idea to begin with. Sometimes I feel like I should've taken off the minute the Disasteroid was gone for good, and..."  
"Daniel," Clockwork interrupted, "I understand you have a lot on your plate right now, but believe me, this is for the best. Everything is as it should be."  
"Excuse me?"  
"Daniel, what did you think were the odds of your parents accepting you as a halfa?  
"Fifty-fifty," Danny admitted.  
"I make it seventy five-twenty five... _against_."

Clockwork directed Danny's attention to the television screens on the wall.  
"Look, Daniel. The screen on the top left is your timeline. It's the one where your parents know, and they're...let's just say 'having a ball'. The one on the right is focused on the timeline where your parents know, and that's it."  
'I envy _him_ ,' Danny thought.  
"Then it gets worse," Clockwork pointed to the next few screens, "In this next one, the parents accept you, but only for so long before they give up. Here's one where the parents know, but keep you contained and used as a guinea pig. In another one, the parents are trying to 'fix' you by attempting to extract your ectoplasm. Then there's one that has Jack and Maddie disowning you and sending you off to be some other town's problem. Next one is pretty much the same thing, only you're banished to the Ghost Zone. In _this_ one, they don't believe you, they don't care, they're blind as a bat, they've gone ahead and strapped you down and dissected you. There a few more like this one, but each one with subtle differences."

Then he gestured to the screen on the bottom right.  
"You see this one, Daniel?" he said, darkly, "This is the one where you _never_ made it."  
Danny gulped. _That_ could've been _him_ if he weren't so lucky as he was in the timeline he _belonged_ in.  
Clockwork's conclusion? "You're better off in the timeline you are in, Daniel. Be happy that the parents have accepted you at all."  
"So...do you know what's going to happen back home? Are mom and dad gonna invite other people to become halfas? I can probably imagine Sam as a halfa, maybe Paulina...definitely _not_ Sam's parents..."  
Clockwork put a hand on Danny's shoulder.  
"Relax, Daniel," he said, "Remember what Andy Warhol said: 'In the future everyone will be world-famous for _fifteen minutes_ '."  
"Gee."  
"Let the 'halfa' craze run its course, then everything will go back to normal. Unless it gets worse."  
And on that word, Danny was dismissed.

On his way out, he passed _another_ Daniel, no doubt from another timeline.  
"Hey, which one are you from?" _our_ Danny asked, out of curiosity.  
"The one where Jack and Maddie kick me out soon after I turned on the portal."  
"Ouch. Hang in there, me."  
Danny patted the other Danny on the shoulder, then went on his way again.


	7. Fifteen Minutes (The End)

_Meanwhile, back at the ranch_...  
Frostbite of the Far Frozen decided to pay a visit to the Great One™'s home to see how he's doing, and also welcome his family to 'the club', as it were. When he realized that Danny wasn't there (he was still at Clockwork's), he made for the portal in the lab, and it was at that point when he realized why he'd never been here before: the journey was _just too damn long_! He was used to generating a portal that would take him directly back to his lair, like any other ghost was able to do. The Fenton Portal opened up to a fixed location, the same one every time. Danny arrived just as Frostbite was finishing his explanation to Jack, Maddie and Jazz.  
"...and that's why you've only met evil ghosts apart from me, Clockwork and...ah, Great One™!" said Frostbite, acknowledging Danny's presence, "Nice to see you again in one piece. If you don't mind, I'll be leaving now."  
And he did. Danny felt better about himself, but at the same time, confused as to what was going.  
"Hi, _Great One_ ™!" said Maddie, teasingly.  
Jazz, _much_ more mature than their parents, floated toward Danny.  
"I see you've all met Frostbite," admitted Danny, "Now can I please ask what the hell's going on?"  
"Frostbite was telling us that the Portal should open to more places in the Ghost Zone, so we don't always have to put up with the escaped convicts from the Ghost Prison," Jazz explained, "So that means the portal's going offline tomorrow."  
"Portal _off_?" groaned Danny, "Ugh, I don't like where this is going..."  
Jazz hugged him.  
"Well, the other thing is that..." she sighed, "The whole school has joined the halfa movement."  
"The...whole... _school_?" said Danny, pausing, "Even Sam?"  
"Yes, even Sam..." Now _Jazz_ was confused, letting go of the hug, "Honestly, I sorta expected a bigger reaction from you!"  
"Clockwork taught me to deal with it. It could've been worse: somewhere in another timeline, there's a Danny Phantom strapped to the table by his parents. The thanks he gets from saving the world from the Disasteroid."  
"So you're not worried about me and your parents and your friends being half ghost all of the sudden?"  
Danny put a hand on Jazz's shoulder.  
"Don't think about it, Jazz. Soon it'll be yesterday's news."  
"...Fifteen minutes!" it dawned on her.  
"Yes...how did you know about that? Senior thesis?"  
"No," said Jazz, "Andy Warhol is here."  
Danny turned in the direction Jazz was pointing. On a wall perpendicular to the portal's was the dead artist himself, applying a silkscreen of a giant TDK logo to a giant mural of Danny's DP insignia. Warhol floated back a bit to admire his work from afar.  
"Gee," he said, then went back to work.  
Danny's hand fell into Jazz shoulder, and he quickly pulled it away.  
"Yeah...I need to work on that," Jazz admitted.  
"Yes you do, Jazz," said Danny, "Yes you do."

The theme of the school prom focused on the fact that all the student's were halfas now. Everybody was in their ghost form, some in their everyday forms, others had their forms modified for formal occasions like the one tonight. Sam was no exception. Any other day, her ghost form turned her black shirt, hair and shirt into white; her purple scrunchie and oval shirt graphic changed to a green scrunchie and a stylistic, blocky "S" as her shirt graphic. But tonight, her ghost dress was light grey, which grew larger and circular as it went down, stopping at feet level with strips of fabric dangling from the bottom. She floated in the air in a way a jellyfish would float to the top of water. When she became a halfa, her parents moved out of town, leaving the manor in the care of her grandma. She felt it was for the best, as they'll probably come back in "fifteen minutes". (heh heh heh)  
"You look adorable," said Danny in awe.  
"So do you," said Sam.  
They hugged each other, in preparation for the dancing to begin proper. DJing the prom was Todd Zeppelin, the greatest radio personality in the world. He put a record on the turntable, and prepared the tonearm. He was cool with it all: this whole half-ghost thing wasn't a bother for him.  
"C'mon, I worked with aliens," Todd would say, " _This_? Child's play."  
The Doors' "People are Strange" came blaring through the speakers, and soon the prom was in full swing. It almost sounded like Jim Morrison was in the room with them. It took the dancers a minute longer to realize that he _was_ , singing along to a pre-recorded instrumental.  
The music played into the night, and as the prom came to an end, the last song (and the slowest in the set) began to play.  
And it came to a close the moment Danny and Sam shared a touching kiss.


End file.
